I expect to receive a lot of negativity for this essay. I'm okay with that. I care more about facts than I do the opinions of others, and I am aware that truth can hurt more than bullshit can, and that people lash out when they hurt.

I've done a lot of thinking about the movements we've seen come and go and what becomes of them in the future. In particular, I've been thinking about BLM, and how it has deteriorated rapidly into a leaderless mass of angry people with no direction, and the harm it is causing. Sure, there have been good intentions from the movement, but there has also been a rise of violent and racist rhetoric caused by BLM among both blacks and whites on either side of the argument.

And yes, there is an argument, and it's all because of BLM's name, which itself is racist in appearance. I don't care about the implied "too." The fact that the "too" has to be implied at all says to me there is a problem with the name that was either intentional to get controversy (any publicity is good, right?) or unintentional and never fixed, even when the problem was pointed out.

And that lead to the "All Lives Matter" counter chant. Yes, some of the people saying it are racists. Just like some BLM activists are racists (I'll get to that). But a large portion of the people saying "All lives matter" really do mean that. They feel that "black lives matter" is focused solely on black lives, that there's racist intent behind the name, and when they say "all lives matter," they do literally mean all lives. If "black lives matter" has an implied "too," why doesn't "all lives matter" have an implied "including black lives?"

Now, about the racism part. It's unquestionable that BLM has given rise to racism on both sides. There are people who see BLM as a violent black uprising, and that should be enough of an excuse to kill more blacks, or to strip them of rights again, or put them back in chains and cages. But there are also black people, either part of BLM or simply inspired by the group, calling for the executions and lynching of white people for the deaths of black people, or for the slavery that black people suffered centuries ago Edit: 150 years ago. If you don't believe me, just watch the beginning half of this video (the last half is just the guy quoting half-true statistics (I plan on addressing those) and a "blue lives matter" homage.)
[video:https://youtu.be/6fPGPTl0ipo]

And this video:
[video:https://youtu.be/Ndu1FqmDjcM]

I know. It's not the whole group. The problem is that it's never the whole group. It's always just a few bad apples. Isn't that the problem with the cops though? It's just a few bad apples, they say, but we rightly point out that nothing is done about those bad apples. Why should any movement be any different? If there's bad apples, something has to be done about them. But I haven't seen people supporting BLM doing anything about BLM's own bad apples. Not anything more than cops have done for their own, anyway. Just some finger wagging and dismissing the problem.

In my opinion, BLM has become a bigger problem than the one it's trying to solve. It's lead to dead people. It's lead to a rise in racism. It's lead to an increase in weapons sales due to people finding reason to fear the other race. What have we gotten in return for that? Bodycams on cops in some places, sure. But we have more militarized police now as well. Plus, with how many cops have been killed by people inspired by BLM, they're probably even harsher on black suspects now. That part's not a truthful statement yet, though, just my speculation as to what will be happening.

Now, I said I'd get to those half-true statistics, and hopefully that will make it clear that I'm not some racist plant, or that I have some sort of anti-black bias, or whatever else you may be thinking that would allow you to dismiss everything I've said.

So the statistics that guy quoted are true in part. Black people are charged and convicted with more violent crimes than their population percentage. But the statistics don't take into account false arrests or convictions, which is more likely to happen to black people than any other race. And yes, it's technically true that more white people are killed by cops than black people, but when you account for population percentage, whites are killed at a far lower rate than blacks. He also doesn't account for unarmed death rates, of which black people are killed at a higher number and rate than white people. Those numbers should also be questioned, though, as it's been shown that cops may plant a gun or a taser next to a body to justify their shooting of someone who was unarmed. And a statistic that isn't discussed much is that the people most likely to be killed are those living in poverty, and even when that's discussed it's usually left out that black people live in poverty at almost twice the average rate.

If you want to dismiss me and this essay as just a plant, or the ramblings of a fool brainwashed by racist propaganda, fine. Just remember, I value facts and truth more than your opinions of me. And I also agree with that cop when he says we should drop the qualifier. Life matters, regardless of whose life it is. I don't care if it's a cop's life, a black person's life, a white person's life, a jewish life, a muslim life, an atheist life, an anthropomorphic dog's life, a xeno life, it doesn't matter to me. Life is life, and nobody has the right to decide when another person's life should come to an end.

It should have to go without saying, but I'll say it anyway: I support the positive goals of BLM. I just wish they'd ditch that stupid controversial distraction of a name, either by adding that implied "too," dropping "black" so it's just "Lives matter," or changing it completely. Anything that let's us move past the racism and hatred and arguing over the name so we can focus on the actual issues.